Erika Olea

Erika Olea, Dragos Olea, Maria Farcas, Gyarfas Olah und Ioana Nemes

Born 1982 in Bucharest/Romania.

Erika Olea studied sociology and social work. After her studies she collected her first working experiences in the visual arts as part of the add team that acted as partner for Galeria Noua Bucharest (2002–2005). Since 2006 Erika Olea has been part of the fashion label Rozalb de Mura that recently changed into the art and fashion collective Apparatus 22 (2011). Since 2007 she is also dedicating her time to the development of a knowledge library as a progressive reference centre on arts, architecture and creative industries.

In 2006 Dragos Olea, Erika Olea, Maria Farcas, Gyarfas Olah und Ioana Nemes (1979–2011, R.I.P) initiated the fashion label Rozalb de Mura. For their work the group received the Kontakt. Erste Bank Fashion Award, Vienna/Austria (2006) and a research residency at the Swedish Visual Arts Fund’s international programme (IASPIS) in Stockholm/Sweden (2010). They participated in several festivals and exhibitions like The Drums of War Will Thunder Once Again that was presented at the Seoul Fashion Week, Seoul/Korea (2008) and ARRRGH! Monsters and Storytelling in Fashion at the Benaki Museum, Athens/Greece (May to August 2011).

In autumn 2010, during their IASPIS residency in Stockholm, the group started rethinking of their interests. As a result, they changed into an art and fashion collective named Apparatus 22. Apparatus 22 works in the art context with ideas and actions that will ignite the critical potential of clothing and fashion and in design/fashion contexts with projects that aim to find new ways to avoid fashion system’s biggest failures. In their quest for projects with greater consequences on fashion topics they are mixing fiction with reality, storytelling and critical approach, blurring the lines between genders and using knowledge and experiences from art, design, sociology, litterature and economics.